More Teens Got Pregnant in High School That Gave Away Free Condoms Without Instructions

Although making sure high school students have access to free contraception (like bowls of condoms) usually reduces the likelihood of teen pregnancy, new research has found an incredibly important catch: the free contraception must also come with instructions on how to actually use it in order to be effective at reducing the teen birth rate.

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The researchers, Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman from the University of Notre Dame, used data from the '90s, but the findings of their analysis are new. They distinguished between schools that just made sure free condoms were available, and schools that made free condoms available and mandated counseling on how to use the free condoms. Among the schools that had mandated condom counseling (which sounds silly but is actually super crucial because we aren't all born knowing how to use condoms properly), there was either no change in teen birth rate or "perhaps a decline," wrote the study authors. But at the schools that just gave away condoms like candy, there was a 10 percent increase in the teen birth rate.

This isn't to say that condoms are ineffective and are causing teens across America to get pregnant. But it does mean that the simple facts and usage guidelines of condoms are very important, and you can't expect teenagers — or anyone, really — to know how to properly use one if you don't give them clear instructions first. The regular male condom, when used perfectly, has a pretty high effectiveness rate of 98 percent — comparable to perfect use of the pill. But with typical use, that effective rate drops a lot, down to 82 percent. Sure, it's a passing grade, but 18/100 condom users getting pregnant because they didn't know to leave some space at the tip, or check for holes, isn't a super-great statistic.

It's been said a million times at this point and will probably said a million more times after this, but this new analysis is just more evidence to throw atop the endlessly tall stack of evidence we already have about why giving teens comprehensive sex ed (birth control lessons included) is so important. You have to know how to use condoms properly in order to make sure people use them at all. Otherwise we might as well be making balloon animals out of them and calling it a day. Not a super-great option!

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